Purpose and procedure

The general purpose of Evidence-Based Nursing is to select from the health related literature those articles reporting studies and reviews that warrant immediate attention
by nurses attempting to keep pace with important advances in their profession. These articles are summarised in “value added
” abstracts and commented on by clinical experts. The specific purposes of Evidence-Based Nursing are:

To identify, using predefined criteria, the best quantitative and qualitative original and review articles on the meaning,
cause, course, assessment, prevention, treatment, or economics of health problems managed by nurses and on quality improvement

To summarise this literature in the form of “structured abstracts” that describe the question, methods, results, and evidence-based
conclusions of studies in a reproducible and accurate fashion

To provide brief, highly expert comment on the context of each article, its methods, and clinical applications that its findings
warrant

To disseminate the summaries in a timely fashion to nurses.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Publishing Company and the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Group publish Evidence-Based Nursing under the editorship of Dr Donna Ciliska at McMaster University in Canada, Dr Andrew Jull at the University of Auckland in
New Zealand, and Dr Carl Thompson at the University of York in the UK. The Health Information Research Unit (HIRU) of the
Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University hosts the editorial office for the production
of the abstracts and commissioning of commentaries. Dr Brian Haynes acts as coordinating editor to ensure that methods and
procedures are consistent with other evidence-based journals prepared by HIRU.

Blinding (masking) of observers of outcome to exposure (criterion assumed to be met if outcome is objective, eg, all cause
mortality or self administered psychometric test)

Studies of quality improvement or continuing education must meet these additional criteria:

Random allocation of participants or units to comparison groups

Follow up of ≥80% of participants

Outcome measure of known or probable clinical importance.

Studies of the economics of healthcare programmes or interventions must meet these additional criteria:

The economic question must compare alternative courses of action

Alternative diagnostic or therapeutic services or quality improvement activities must be compared on the basis of both the
outcomes produced (effectiveness) and resources consumed (costs)

Evidence of effectiveness must be from a study (or studies) of real (not hypothetical) patients, which meets the criteria
for treatment, assessment, quality improvement, or a review article

Results should be presented in terms of the incremental or additional costs and outcomes of one intervention over another

Where there is uncertainty in the estimates or imprecision in the measurement, a sensitivity analysis should be done.

Clinical prediction guides must meet these additional criteria:

The guide must be generated in ≥1 set of real (not hypothetical) patients (training set)

The guide must be validated in an independent set of real patients (test set)

The guide must pertain to treatment, assessment, prognosis, or causation.

Review articles must meet these additional criteria:

A clear statement of the clinical topic being reviewed

A clear description of the sources and methods for identifying articles

Specification of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting articles for detailed review

≥1 article in the review must meet the above noted criteria for treatment, assessment, prognosis, causation, quality improvement,
or economics of healthcare programmes.

Qualitative studies

Content reflects the phenomenon of interest from the perspective of people experiencing it

Data collection methods are appropriate for qualitative data

Analyses are appropriate for qualitative data.

These criteria are subject to modification if, for example, it becomes feasible to apply higher standards that increase the
validity and applicability of studies for clinical practice. The objective of Evidence-Based Nursing is to abstract only the very best literature, consistent with a reasonable number of articles “making it through the filter.”

Articles meeting the criteria set out above are abstracted according to the procedure for more informative abstracts,1 with the following modifications: abstracts are approximately 400 words in length; and each abstract is reviewed by an expert
in the content area covered by the article. This expert writes a commentary in which she or he compares the study findings
to previous research findings, identifies any important methodological problems that affect interpretation of the study results,
and offers recommendations for clinical application. The author of the article is given an opportunity to review the abstract
and commentary before publication.

On an ongoing basis, we will publish to the Evidence-Based Nursing web site (evidencebasednursing.com) a selected list of articles that passed all criteria but were not abstracted because,
in the judgment of the editors, their findings were less applicable to general nursing practice, the topic was of interest
to only a select group of nurse specialists, or the topic was recently addressed in another abstract.